Time Overlaps
by Kammyh
Summary: In two different time-sets Jack thinks that his relationship with Ianto needs a change, but both of them being Torchwood means that things aren't going to be smooth. Will they manage to survive everything? What about their team? Team TW3 plus Donna. Exit Wounds fix-it. Sequel to Eclipse on the Lost Lovers and Tainted Souls. JANTO
1. Bondage and Maths

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Torchwood and Dr Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue, bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings:** Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY. Before this, you _**should**_ read Eclipse on the Lost Lovers, but you _**must**_ read Tainted Souls or not much will make sense to you even though the whole arch is strictly canon based as 2013 goes. Graphic sex.

**Bondage and Maths**

Inside the dark room, the silence was broken every once in a while by short intakes of breath and small moans similar to mewls. The pale moonlight shone upon the two figures barely moving on the bed, lighting up the youngest man's skin like soft snow.

"Ja…ck," Ianto whimpered, almost pleading.

He was straddling his lover, and his eyes were covered with a dark mask that hid a good half of his face, while his hands were tied up behind his head, chained to the mask in the most uncomfortable of positions. Jack laid beneath him with a wicked expression on his face, as he fought against his own desire to trust quicker and faster inside his lover to keep up the maddening game they had begun too many minutes before.

The rules were simple: one single thrust and wait, one more thrust and then wait again. Everything only to drive themselves crazy with desperation and need. Ianto, being blindfolded, couldn't foresee when Jack was going to move or what his lover would give him: would he lightly caress his thigh? Would he take him in his hands until he was going to cum only to let it go again? Would he fuck him? Would he grope him?

Jack, on the other hand, even though he was increasingly frustrated by the irregular and slow pace he was keeping while buried inside his lover, took his chance to drink in the vision of a lost and unsure Ianto, loving all the hesitant and undone sounds he made.

When they were at the beginning of their relationship, or better, of what would _much later_ evolve into _some sort_ of relationship, it hadn't taken them too much to grow confident with each other's bodies. No matter how much the idea had intrigued the captain at the beginning, the allure of an _almost_ shy Ianto didn't last much.

Nevertheless Jack had found it both endearing as much as arousing so, during the various stages of their dabbling, he had experimented with lots of different tricks just to steal another glance at that particular aspect of Ianto's character. It was not like he didn't adore the confident lover he had on daily basis, far from that, but he was a 51st century guy, with peculiar needs and an undercurrent desire to confront himself with different sexual challenges every once in a while.

As soon as he had put his mind to it, after they had began dating and even more after Owen and Toshiko's death, Jack had discovered that Ianto Jones alone would suffice, and that he could be completely satisfied even without frequently changing partner. There was something in conquering Ianto definitively, that simply put trying to get in everyone else's pants at a level best described as '_not so much_' or '_too easy task_'.

The actual extension of it, though, become clear to Jack only some time after his sweet Rose decided to gift him back his lover, and he finally had the chance to ask Ianto to try a threesome. Ianto had cautiously accepted and eventually they'd hooked up with a stunning woman they had just met in a bar.

It was exactly six months before, but he remembered everything clearly now, even though things had been a bit confused for him during the days following that little escapade.

Even though the sex had been amazing and also Ianto admitted in the end that it hadn't been an entirely bad experience as he had feared, the truth was that for Jack it had been special _only_ because of Ianto's presence. The adrenaline of a new conquest, the one he still got when he _flirted_ with every creature, living or not, had simply ceased to exist once they had entered the girl's room and he found himself in bed with her.

He had thought at first that it might have been because Ianto was there with them too and he subconsciously felt guilty about it, but once he had let himself think about it better, he realized that his lover had joined them only some time later, after he had gathered enough courage to try something completely new to him.

Not tainting their home with bad memories, in case things didn't work well, had been the main reason why they had not chosen their own flat for the encounter after all. They knew that there were chances for it to become an issue later, so they'd decided beforehand to arrange everything out of what had become their routine and their domestic setting, just in case.

A clear answer to Jack's inner turmoil, though, had been his immediate reaction at Ianto's insecurities _when_ he had eventually joined them. _That_ had been a rush of adrenaline, and _that_ had been the moment in which Jack understood how his own body and heart were already miles far ahead from his mind, as they told him that he couldn't ever consider sex without Ianto. And if Ianto happened to look at him with those big and timid blue eyes in the process, all the better.

At least now his boyfriend had no reason to fear him sleeping around for as long as he was alive, and Jack was happy to know that it _was_ going to be a very long time.

Solved the "_lack of need for new partners_" issue, Jack had enough time to try and take to its full extend the miraculous turn-on that his boyfriend could offer when all his infinite knowledge failed to assist him and had no idea about what would happen or what to do.

What had condemned Ianto, strictly speaking, had probably been his complete lack of experience with men when he had unconsciously/consciously seduced Jack at the very beginning. Even though it was supposed to be just sex back then, _that_ had been the very first moment in which the captain had the first taste of what was going to become his drug.

Each time they tried something new, and it was quite often, Ianto's beginnings were always slow, uncertain and clumsy, satisfying Jack's inner desire to teach as much as to give orders. The good and worse part of it, though, was that his boyfriend was a pretty adept and fast learner and once he had understood what he was supposed to do, he easily mastered it like a pro in record time.

It was a great feature for a lover of course, unless you were in the mood for shy sex and you had almost covered the whole extension of past, present and future kamasutras. When something like that had happened with his past lovers, he hadn't bother too much: he had simply found someone new, maybe from a planet with many more moral inhibitions than what he was used to, hoping to find someone entertaining.

With Ianto on the other hand _everything_ he tried was the _first_ _time_ he had done it, at least with a man, so given Jack's big and tortuous imagination a shy Ianto had become quite the epicentre of every dream he had.

As he was quickly running out of options, Jack had to turn to more sophisticated ways to get what he wanted during those days in which he was in the mood for it and ended up inventing the most complex positions only to confuse the Welshman further and crack his logic at the last minute.

For their special night though, the idea of the blindfold had come out naturally and it surprised him how it hadn't crossed his mind until then. No matter how many times they would try this, Ianto was never going to get a hold of it not even with experience, so Jack would always get his shy lover whenever he wanted. And if Ianto also happened to be madly aroused and frustrated, he surely wouldn't complain.

An evil smirk twisted Jack's lips and he feather-like traced with his fingers the whole length of his lover's cock, eliciting a strangled cry from him.

"Don't…Stop…" Ianto managed to breath out.

"Oh Jones, Ianto Jones, I don't see any reason to do that again, do I?" Jack teased, repeating the same action despite his words and drawing out a surprised hiss from his lover.

"You're evil…Ah!" Ianto's entire frame shook as Jack began to actually thrust inside him, building up a more satisfying pace for the both of them… Only to stop again a few minutes later.

"Stop now and I'll kill you!" Ianto screamed, his voice desperate, aroused and terribly dangerous as he tried desperately to free his arms. Being unsuccessful with that, Ianto clenched his ring of muscles around Jack's cock in retaliation.

The captain groaned and couldn't stop himself from bucking up a couple more times before gathering enough self-control to stop himself.

"You're a little devil, you know that?" Jack teased breathlessly.

"Says the man who's teasing me into unconsciousness!" Ianto argued, and he tried to straighten his legs a bit to do the movement by himself, since his lover was being an ass about it, but he almost fell over Jack, as he shockingly discovered that his legs were tied up in a way that prevented him to stretch at all.

"When the fuck did you do that!?" Ianto screamed, bordering into exasperation.

Jack simply sniggered. "Had entertain myself while I kept edging you."

Ianto's groan morphed into a moan as his lover choose that very same moment to start thrusting again inside him, this time way harsher that before as he gripped his hips hard to ease himself inside, since Ianto was basically bounded into stillness.

Their orgasm built up quicker than Jack had hoped, so he took Ianto's cock in his hand to help his lover towards the end, and soon pearly white semen spurted all over his chest, its hotness sending him straight over his own edge.

A soft blush coloured Ianto's cheeks at the sudden warmth inside himself and an embarrassed cry escaped his lips despite his desperate attempt to self control. Jack couldn't ask for a better display of his drug if asked.

He made quick work of the belts tightened around Ianto's thighs and shins, and helped him lay down next to him to lighten the burden on his knees, as he freed his lover's wrists and untied the blindfold.

Ianto tried to open his eyes, but he soon had to close them again, since even the pale moonlight was way too painfully bright for his long blinded eyes. Eventually he hid his face over his boyfriend chest as he snuggled closer to him, searching for comfort. Jack tightened his hold on him and kissed the top of his head, smiling evilly as he heard the alarm clock on the bedside table chiming midnight.

"Happy birthday, my love."

Ianto simply grunted. "This doesn't count as a birthday present."

Jack laughed. "Doesn't it? Pity, because I'm quite sure that you liked it a lot."

"Let me count the damages: I still can't stretch my legs and my arms without crying, I can't find a single muscle that doesn't ache and I don't think I could sit on a chair properly for the next couple of days." Ianto began seriously considering his words, as he weighted the pros and cons before giving his resolution with a wide and deeply satisfied smile. "Yeah, I liked it a lot."

Jack's smile widened even more, as he helped his lover laying atop of him to kiss him properly.

"Anyway I had something else in mind when I blindfolded you… Things have only gotten a little out of hand when I saw you all cute and lost, being deprived of your sight."

Ianto looked down at Jack, raising an eyebrow. "Owen was right: you're one sick man, Harkness."

"Oh no" Jack countered, taking a firm hold of Ianto's cheeks with his hands. "I'm just an old man with a knack for young meat."

"Yeah, and the fact that I'm practically turning 28 when I should be turning 32, but in fact I still look bloody 26 doesn't bother you at all?"

"It _does_ bother me actually, you were sexy with those few gray strands. I even masturbated on the graveyard recording a couple of times before you came back definitely."

"Oh, so I'd better not to spoil your fun then." Ianto stated, trying to sound collected despite Jack's roaming hands on his backside.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked dubiously, crooking an eyebrow and pausing the teasing.

"I gave a better look at my future self on that video and my assumption is that I trolled you just fine."

The captain looked at him in his eyes completely lost, not understanding the meaning behind his words.

"Genetically speaking it's not possible for my hair to be getting grey with my face aged so little. We tend to have grey hair way older in my family."

"Wait, you mean that you dyed some of your hair grey only to make us believe that you were older than you looked?"

"How would I know," Ianto answered shrugging. "I'm guessing here as much as you can."

"But I'm getting grey hair_ now_!" Jack's face was a mix of horror and outrage.

"Yeah, but you were turned immortal in your late thirties. There's more than ten years gap that has to stretch through immortal longevity."

"Great, now let me go to sleep knowing that I'll forever be a cradle robber." Jack said, yawning as he tightened his arms around Ianto and turned to his side, bringing the Welshman over with him like he was hugging a Teddy bear.

Ianto stifled a yawn too, and made himself more comfortable in his lover's arms as he caressed lovingly his chest.

"I'll wait 'till tomorrow to know then." Ianto muttered, almost dozing off to sleep himself.

"Uh?"

"You said that exhausting me with teasing sex wasn't the main reason for you to blindfold me."

"Heck, you're right! I'd forgotten it!" Jack exclaimed all of sudden sitting up, fully awake.

Ianto grumbled sleepily, shifting on his back to evade Jack's drive.

"So you forgot the main reason that had you pleading Gwen and Donna to give us our first night off in months, so that you could bring me to the most expensive restaurant in town and then to the cinema, incidentally, only to make out in the back row?"

"Hey, that make out wasn't satisfying enough, I _had_ to have you as soon as the lights were out again and you were nicely blindfolded."

"I thought the hand job following the making out was satisfying enough." Ianto retorted, glaring at Jack.

"It was, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to keep the edging going so long."

The captain's eyes seemed almost innocent enough to be believed, so Ianto simply grimaced, trying to keep his pride intact despite Jack's initial words. He would have considered it shameful if domesticity had worn out his sexual prowess.

"So, what was all this about since it appears that I'm not allowed to sleep?"

Jack searched inside the pockets of his discarded trousers until he found a small dark case. He opened it in front of Ianto's curious stare and revealed a pair of ornate platinum bands, crossed by all their length by a double line of tiny emeralds.

"Would you like, you know…" Jack stuttered uncertain. "To become my partner?"

Ianto's initial surprise, suddenly turned into a frown until his glare eventually fixed unreadable on his lover.

"What do you want me to forgive you? Did you sleep with someone else?"

"What!?" Jack cried out offended.

"Oh, please." Ianto told him plainly, crossing his hands on his chest. "You are the kind of man who does nice things because you hope to be forgiven for something you did, I have proof. You asked me out on a date only because you wanted to be forgiven for going away with the Doctor without a word and the mess with Gwen, and it took you the discussion we had with Beth to remember that when you're in a relationship with someone you are supposed to care for the other and not only be certain that he came too."

"_You_ are the one who never told me you thought I had bad in-bed manners! How am I supposed to know you don't like them if you don't fucking tell me!? And if you didn't notice before, no matter what prompted it the first time, we kept going on dates regularly after that and you never had to call my in-bed manners bad ever again!"

"Ever again might be a little bit exaggerated, but I have to give you that." Ianto replied, now smiling sweetly at him.

Jack stared at him with his mouth open, the chilling sensation to have been played quickly becoming a certainty.

"Look, do we really have to fight over past issues?" He argued, closing the lid of the small case. "I hoped you'd say yes… I'm sorry if you still don't trust me enough to accept, but you could at least avoid being sassy about it."

As he tried to put the case away though, Ianto stopped him, enclosing it in his hands alongside Jack's fingers. He stared at him amused and a little bit embarrassed.

"Of course it was a yes, Jack. I would never refuse you, you know it."

"You accused me to be the one hiding something! To cheat on you!" Jack stated, staring astonished at his lover.

"I didn't accuse you," Ianto pointed out evenly, deep redness now creeping on his neck. "I just asked why."

"And how's that a yes?"

"You can't tell me it's a no either."

Jack's jaw dropped again, as he failed to find a proper retort to his lover's logic.

"Why do I put up with you?" Jack asked, sighing deeply as he covered his too tired eyes with his hand.

"Because the sex is good?" Ianto offered playfully, even more embarrassed than before. "What's wrong?"

"You know, when someone asks someone else out or to be their partner, they expect a yes/no answer not '_As long it is not in an office_' or '_What do you want me to forgive you?_'. Those do not equals to yes, those equals to '_What the hell!?_'. How did you survive with Lisa?"

"She simply didn't ask," Ianto answered honestly. "She assumed it was alright with me."

"What kind of relationship is that?" Jack asked puzzled, but his boyfriend simply shrugged.

"A practical one. We always managed to have a good time, because we were together and I was still allowed my own propositions. So things pretty much went both ways."

"It… doesn't make sense, Ianto. This it's two people adding the other to their lives when they feel like it and the other adapting, waiting for his chance to do something they like better."

"How can it not make sense?" Ianto asked confused. "It was the same for us at the beginning."

"Yeah, when we still didn't admit to love each other!"

"Talk about yourself. If I didn't love you I wouldn't have taken you back after your little exploit with the Doctor, despite wanting to admit it or not."

"Well, thinking about it now, I don't think I would have come back so right away if I didn't love you back, but I was still pretty much confused and traumatized by the Year That Never Was at the time. I only wanted my quiet normal life back after the complete mess that is having a trip with the Doc."

"Quiet and normal? Do you really qualify as normal working for Torchwood, shagging your co-worker and wanting to shag another one, who incidentally already has her own boyfriend?"

"You can't deny that beats a year killed day after day."

Ianto reclined his head to his side, silently conceding him the point. It had already sounded unbearable at the beginning, but now that he had a firsthand experience of what dying and coming back to life meant, he could agree with his boyfriend even more easily.

"So," Ianto asked, hoping to change the topic and sensually caressing Jack's chest as he leaned over him again. "Are we going to make incisions?"

"Incisions?" The captain asked amused. "Like love you forever?"

"You _do_ realize that would be a bad joke considering how we are both going to be around almost that much, don't you?"

Jack simply laughed at Ianto's reproachful expression. "What would you like to write, then?"

"The truth? That you're the man I came back for." Ianto said, blushing a deeper shade of red as he tried to hide his overly embarrassed expression. He was getting better at it, but talking about his feelings for Jack still made him feel awkward. "Rose brought me back because you missed me, didn't she? I wouldn't find a better way to thank her."

"Well," Jack said, tracing the lines of Ianto's stubbly chin with the tip of his index finger."Then I'll write that you're the man I'm coming back to, because no matter how much I might love new adventures, I discovered that I can enjoy them properly only if I have a home to come back to... And you're my home Ianto Jones."

Jack left a sweet kiss on the tip on his lover's nose before continuing in a much less romantic tone. "And I'll write that in Boeshane language, so I'll be sure that my shaming will stay between the two of us."

"I'm not wearing something I can't read." Ianto argued back, pouting. "But the idea of using our own languages has its charm."

"What would you suggest then?" Jack asked curiously. He loved the way his lover's mind worked most of the times.

"I'll write down yours in Welsh for my band, and you'll write mine in Boeshane language for yours."

"And how would we know we won't cheat?"

"Trust. I find it extremely romantic." Ianto teased with a beaming smile. "Besides, they are more personal languages, but they aren't some kind of private code. You could always have my band read out by Gwen, Rhys or my sister, and I could always wait for the Doctor, Hart or your next ex-lover that will fall upon us."

"You really must have a lot of trust in me since you believe those three to be common occurrences."

The glare Ianto threw at him was all the answer he needed.

Jack laughed nervously and then moved his lover to sit in his lap, smiling happily as Ianto affectionately put his arms around his neck and snuggled closer. Their lips met on their own accord and they devoured each other greedily, exploring every inch of the other's naked skin.

"I propose a toast…" Ianto whispered in his boyfriend's ear.

"We've barely been at home lately, I don't think we have something to toast with." Jack pointed out, but the malicious smirk that crossed Ianto's lips made him understand that maybe, just maybe, they were talking about two different kind of celebrations.

"I think I've everything I want to drink right here," Ianto said with the deepest and huskiest voice he could muster, as he slowly slid lower, preparing himself to fondle Jack's cock.

"Wait a minute you down there." Jack ordered with the tone he usually used at work. Obediently Ianto stopped, looking up at him like a dog who had just been denied his favourite toy.

The captain approached him and slapped playfully his butt, following the tempting curve of his cheeks and then down the tights to grope firmly him behind his knees and tugging his legs up to face him.

"Do you realize that if we have to make a toast we're _both_ supposed to drink, uh?"

Ianto's lips quirked in a happy smile as he moved forwards again, gripping his boyfriend's knee for leverage.

"You sure you don't want to check on Gwen and Donna first? I won't allow second thoughts."

"They're old enough to call if is something's wrong." Jack cut short as he laid on his side and slid his head between his lover's legs.

Ianto wanted to argue that the two women had not always shown such a rational behaviour, but as soon as his cock was in Jack's mouth he forgot everything, and simply prepared himself to return the favour.

Nothing was better to celebrate their engagement than a little bit of maths.

**TBC**


	2. Supernatural Parade

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Dr Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue, bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY.

**Supernatural Parade**

Back at the hub, the scenario was beyond apocalyptic.

The proximity alarms had gone off and were blasting off loudly, the rift activity signals had been ignored for so long that the volume had reached an ear-breaking level, and Myfanwy's worried and panicked cries joined the Torchwood team's confused yells in a cacophony of noise.

"Gwen! Tell me you found something!" Donna shouted from her position next to the cog door. She was desperately trying to keep it closed with the help of a magnetic clamp powered by human heat, but she was steadily losing her energy and heat, hands growing clammier and cold. "They are forcing open the bloody door!"

"The computer is still cross-referencing!" Gwen,in a fit of desperation, hit the computer's hard-drive with the book she was holding, wishing it to go faster. "Here they say to sonic the vampire-like ones but not the zombie-like… Lightning's good for zombies but not for vampires… Don't ask me why… This general-support encyclopaedia is useless unless we know what they are!"

She threw the ancient and heavy tome through the hub and ran towards the only section of the archives she hadn't vandalized yet, hoping to find something useful there.

"Don't leave me alone now, you psychotic woman!" Donna argued out loud, seeing Gwen disappear through a door she didn't even know existed.

Shaun and Rhys threw Donna an outraged look for being ignored, but they knew better than argue with the harassed woman, especially now. Shaun focused once again on Myfanwy, trying to calm her down so she wouldn't hurt herself, whilst Rhys simply continued repairing the section of the rift manipulator that had been damaged by the explosion that had happened at the beginning of the night.

After some time, Gwen re-emerged from the archives with a tommy-gun and a laser blaster in her hands and rushed towards Donna, angrily throwing the blaster at her feet.

"Why am I a psycho now!?" Gwen protested, looking at her teammate both surprised and insulted.

"Oh, c'mon! It was the only word that sounded like psychic that came to my mind!" Donna cried out desperately. "Go back to the damn computer!"

"Oh, right!" Gwen agreed, and then ran back to her workstation to stare again at the screen with renewed apprehension. "It's finishing now and… It found them!"

"_Avanpoxiaran_." She began reading. "_Related species: Gelth. Their dead can be brought back to life if they manage to steal the body of a living alien. Before the switch can be done they must absorb the lives of a certain number of people to prepare the body for transition. They won't do anything on a hostile planet until they get in contact with an alien subject to test for compatibility. If the compatibility check gives positive results, all the Avanpoxiaran in the area will move to get the test and every other person unfortunate enough to be seen with it, instinctively taking for granted those people to be of the same genetic matrix of the tested_."

"What the heck does it mean?" Donna asked completely baffled. Even after two years, big words still confounded her.

"They are bloody vampire alien zombies!" Gwen summed up for her, and then glared at Rhys. "And they all activated and are trying to get us, only because _you_ _had_ to go and touch one of them! I told you to be careful during night patrols!"

"I didn't think a little girl would be harmful!" Rhys tried to defend himself, closing the glass panel of the rift manipulator and going behind the control panel to restore its functionalities.

"When we're talking about aliens, it is _especially_ not the little girl!"

"Oi! I finally managed to calm down Myfanwy," Shaun interrupted them, running hopefully towards Gwen. "You still want to try the sleeping powder trick?"

"No, they are dead, it would be useless." Gwen cried out desperately, falling down on the chair with her head in her hands, trying to think about another plan.

"I think we should call Jack in," Rhys proposed, but soon the resolute stares of both Gwen and Donna burned holes through his skull like fire.

"NO WAY!" They shouted simultaneously.

"Now, you girls." Shaun tried to support the other man, only to be subjected to the girls' twin glare together with Rhys. "I know we're just the part-timers here, but Rhys's right. If we chose democratically to vote for this, I'm siding with him to call them in."

"Jack and Ianto worked double turns and did all the night shifts while we were pregnant and also after the kids were born!" Gwen yelled at them. "There's no fucking way that we are going to deny them the first night they took for themselves in _over two years_!"

"Yeah, but if we can't manage to stop this mess, there won't be any Torchwood to come back to!" Rhys argued back, trying unsuccessfully to reason with his wife. "We're just lucky that until now we're the only ones they want, but give them time to spread around the city when morning comes, and there will be no way for us to keep this mess from them! Not to mention the rest of Cardiff!"

"I'll show you how much I can keep this chaos from them!" Gwen snapped at him, as she went to a different computer station and pressed as quickly as she could the keys to use the emergency protocol she wanted.

As soon as she had finished with the last entry button, a screeching noise of walls moving echoed inside the already chaotic hub, and a light earthquake made some of the shelves crash on the floor, their contents scattering everywhere.

"What the heck have you done!?" Donna asked, both worried and amazed, grasping tightly the magnetic clamp in her hands for dear life.

"I shielded the hub, putting it under an invisible dome: it was one of Tosh's latest tricks." Gwen explained, smirking mischievously at the other three. "It uses the rift energy, so basically we only needed the right program and a computer connected to the rift manipulator to activate the guard. Luckily the piece of software was still saved on our servers after the explosion of our original hub and even after the various hacking attempts of the Government."

"So this means…" Rhys muttered, his face turning increasingly white.

"That it will be only us against them from now on. For as long as it takes." She told him with a resolute glint in her eyes as she charged the tommy-gun still in her hands. "The dome will undo itself automatically once the emergency stops."

"Let's not waste any more time then." Donna yelled, as she fiddled with the clamp commands in order to make it deactivate itself in a minute. Unfortunately once turned on the automatic setting that was the longest period of time she could set.

She took her blaster and charged it with a loud electric sound, the same determination in Gwen's eyes lighting up hers too.

"I will fry you with the best weapon for a temp, babies."

"Only because it doesn't pull you backwards when you shoot." Gwen sneered at her playfully as she joined her, taking front position at her side.

Both of them were ready to confront the vampires, aliens, zombies or whatever those creatures were as they stared unsurely at the slow countdown shown by the magnetic clamp display.

After what felt like a year of time ticking by, the timer hit the zero and the cog door started to open.

The two women immediately began to fire at the aliens with everything they had, not even waiting to see their ugly faces, until the tommy-gun shots overflowed the entrance of the hub with a thick fog of debris, and the blaster blinded everyone with its colourful flashes of destruction.

Rhys took out his gun, hoping to get there in time to help the girls, but as he tried to run and reach his wife, he discovered that his feet had been fastened at the rift manipulator control station by a pair of handcuffs.

"Fuck you, Gwen!" He cried out, furious.

Shaun in the meantime had thought about a more tactical approach and had successfully managed to secure two small plastic bags to Myfanwy's legs. Somehow she understood what the black-skinned part-timer was asking her to do, and she flew quickly towards the cog door, disappearing among all the dust and bolts with a loud, high-pitched cry.

"What have you given 'er!?" Rhys asked him, astonished by the pterodactyl's obedience and understanding of Shaun's orders as well as the Englishman's ability to produce an alternative plan to the girls' suicidal one.

"Just a bit of something." Shaun told Rhys with a knowing grin, running towards him to try to free his foot from the handcuffs.

Before he had managed to help Rhys though, all the noise in the entrance stopped altogether. There were no more alarms, no more cries, no more shooting, no more blasts. Both men stared dazedly at the cog door, worried about their wives' lives, not even daring to take a breath, or hoping to see them come out unscathed from that mess. As the seconds passed by though, Shaun decided he'd better go back to what he had been doing and hastily forced open the cuffs with the handle of his own gun.

Together they rushed to the doorway, praying deep inside themselves that their beloved ones were still alive, but, once they got there, what they saw made them burst in laughter, making the worry vanish instantly.

"Eeww." Gwen said disgusted, as she peeled pieces of ghostly white skin off her body.

"This serves you right, Gwennie." Rhys reprimanded her, smirking pleased at the outcome as he crossed his arms on his chest. He knew that maybe, just maybe, he was supposed to help her, but for just a few more minutes he was going to take his time to savour the sweet taste of karma biting back.

Shaun on the other hand was quick to get to his wife's side, trying to clean her to the best of his abilities.

"You're feeling alright, honey bucket?" He cooed gently. "It shouldn't be toxic, but you've better get cleaned soon or you beautiful hair will be ruined."

Those words made it through Donna's shock, and she hastily and unsuccessfully began to remove the residues from herself, only to stop unnerved after a short while, deeming it a hopeless case.

"I need a shower," she concluded, noticing how the substance seemed to cling to her skin. "What the heck have you done by the way, love? Rhys was feet-cuffed so it _must_ have been you."

Shaun helped his wife to stand up and smiled fondly at her. "Something like alien holy water. Ianto gave me the detailed name and explanation actually, but I got lost half-way through it, so I stayed by Jack's final definition of it. Gwen said they were also vampires, so I took the chance. Myfs is a good girl, she managed to understand what was needed and got to do her delivery quickly."

"Don't let Ianto know you called her like that," Gwen warned him, grimacing as Rhys eventually took pity on her and decided to at least help her back to her feet. "Stick with _the pterodactyl_ if you can't stop yourself from that nickname and everything will be fine, mate."

"Possessive of his pet is he?" Shaun asked, amused, trying to not laugh as Gwen slipped on the mess on the dirty floor, falling on her backside once again and this time bringing Rhys down with her.

"You can say that." Gwen moaned in pain.

Rhys and Shaun shooed the girls away and proceeded to do a thorough cleaning and sterilizing of the floors and Myfanwy, both overly covered in mushy ghostly residues, the animal squeaking in displeasure, more than a little annoyed.

The two women took their time to get their extremely needed showers, ran basic tests on themselves to be certain that there wasn't any dangerous substance or remains on them and then joined their husbands in the impossible task to bring the hub back to some resemblance of neat order before daylight came, as it would bring with the morning dew also their moody boss and his nearly OCD boyfriend.

No need to be said that it wasn't Jack's rage the one they feared the most.

Donna was still fixing the last weird device back on its proper shelf when the two men entered the hub, looking unsettled and quite disgusted.

"Is there any particular reason for the tourist office, the staircase and the tunnel to smell like a dead dog?" Ianto asked, raising an eyebrow at his female co-workers.

Gwen's mouth opened and closed a couple of times as she clenched nervously the tome she had been repairing in her arms.

"Uhm, yeah… Dogs! What else could be smelling like dogs except… dogs, uh?" She stuttered. "They… broke inside and we dealt with them. Tramps."

"Yeah!" Donna joined, trying to sound more convincing than Gwen ad failing miserably at it. "Absolutely no aliens, no vampires, no ghosts and no zombies. Absolutely nothing that could fall into the supernatural categ- Ouch!"

Jack and Ianto had to raise an eyebrow at that, especially when Gwen elbowed Donna to make her shut up and then both girls looked up at them, smiling too innocently for them to be honest.

"So, if we checked the CCTV and the reports that should already be on my desk, we're going to find just that?" The captain asked distrustfully.

"Well" Gwen tried to say, gesturing nervously with her free hand. "There were _many_ dogs you know. So we were thinking about calling it a day- I mean, a night… And then coming back this afternoon… write the reports, of course… and, well-"

Something crossed her mind and she smiled widely, hoping she had finally found her way out of the forced interview.

"Obviously take you two out to dinner! Happy birthday, Ianto!" Gwen concluded happily, over-excitingly hugging her friend and patting his back.

"Yeah, happy birthday, immortal number two!" Donna joined Gwen in congratulating and hugging Ianto, taking extreme care to drag him slightly to his side to prevent the two men to notice Shaun and Rhys leaving the hub. "How does it feel aging and not aging at the same time? Don't develop a liking for bananas, uuh? One Doctor is enough."

Jack laughed heartily at her words, obviously taking the right decision to understand it the wrong way. "Too late for it, he already developed a taste for bananas some time ago!"

"Jack!" Gwen reprimanded him, fighting to contain her grin.

Ianto simply shook his head and ignored his lover, frowning. "It's absurd actually. Now I understand why Jack never wanted to celebrate his."

The captain grinned at him and encircled his shoulder with his arm. "I don't even know when it should be if I were to put my birthday on 21st century Earth terms, so please, feel free to celebrate your own for as long as you remember when it is."

"Why don't we make a big double party?!" Donna proposed happily. "No one should be denied gifts, free cakes and snacks!"

"I said don't mind me!" Jack argued. "I don't even know what's the number of candles you should put on the cake, or if the lot would even fit over a three layers one."

"Don't worry about it, Jack." Gwen smiled at him motherly. "After we get our sleep we'll make sure there's a gift for you as well."

"I'd say, you write the draft of your report _before_ you go home and I'll take that as my _not_-birthday present." Jack smirked back at the two women, who swore silently under their breath as they took out a paper each and scribbled on it furiously.

"You know, it just occurred to me that you could be celebrating your birthday before you are even actually born." Ianto told him with a teasing smile on his lips. "Technically, our birth dates would make me three thousand years your senior."

"That line of thoughts wouldn't work, Ianto," Jack argued, stifling a laugh. "You can't get partner-shipped with an unborn child."

"Did I hear the word partnership?" Donna cut in, her report in her hands and a very interested glint in her eyes.

"Is she right?" Gwen joined her, with her own paper at hand, glancing from Jack to Ianto. "One of you two eventually proposed?"

"Yeah" Ianto answered, blushing madly as he tried to keep a blank expression on his face instead of the embarrassed happy smile that was trying to break through. "Jack proposed yesterday night."

"Yeah, and he answered like the dork he is." Jack concluded gleefully, managing to make his lover blush even more.

"Oh my gosh, what did he say?" The two women sighed in unison.

After the old team had made up with one another, getting over fears and jealousies, and they had acquired the overly chatty Donna, all the team had begun to get together after work the way they were used to do when Toshiko and Owen were still alive, in order to know each other better, chat and take some well-deserved break in-between the worse cases happening to them.

Going out in a large group had proven to be much of a relief, especially when they had to deal with humans being way more monstrous than the aliens they were after, but had also opened a spot for reminiscing their past along with few more private details. Obviously none of the couples indulged too much in detailed explanations of their private life, even though Jack regularly tried to turn their friendly exchange of anecdotes into more X-rated tales, however they had eventually spilled enough to uncover some of the weirdest traits of each other personalities.

Donna only appeared tough, but she was actually rather unsure of herself and her abilities. Gwen tried to act cool, rude and detached, but even small things could hurt her deeply and she especially suffered when _she_ was the one hurting someone else. Jack, despite all his flirting, could in reality be shy and nervous when he really put his mind into something, whilst Ianto was so unused to express his feelings clearly that he couldn't give a straight answer even if his life depended on it, especially when he was offered something he had always wanted.

Since all of them knew how much the younger immortal yearned to have Jack signed off for his pants only, they could only guess the amount of idiocies that could have fallen out that smart mouth.

"He asked me whom I'd cheated him with" Jack answered, glaring and smiling at Ianto at the same time.

"So romantic." The two women deadpanned, shaking dramatically their heads at the Welshmen.

"You know, geek," Donna told him, as she friendly approached Ianto and patted his shoulder, "Sometimes I suspect _you_'re the alien of the couple."

"I'm telling you again," Jack argued for what was presumably the 234th time as Ianto and Gwen tried to stop their giggles. "I'm _not_ an alien!"

"I'm not believing that after that thing Gwen told me about pregnancies and oestrogen." Donna argued, pointing accusingly her finger at him. Jack huffed as he rolled his eyes and brusquely collected the women's reports.

"Hurry up and go to sleep! Say hi to your husbands and kids for us."

"See you tonight then!" Gwen chirped happily, heading towards the door and bringing Donna along with her. "And congratulations on the proposal! We're going to give you guys a hard time about every detail, so you better prepare yourself!"

"Bye bye! Congrats from me too, immortal one and two!"

The two women disappeared behind the cog door and Jack let himself fall on the nearest chair as he handled the reports to Ianto for the initial supervision.

"Do you really think they believe they have fooled us?"

"Don't know, but at least they called for help." Ianto answered, taking the papers without even looking at them and moving straight to the kitchenette to prepare coffee for Jack and himself.

"I did not hear any call tonight." Jack claimed with a grunt, as he turned the chair to face the kitchen general direction.

"I meant Rhys and Shaun." Ianto clarified. "Didn't you notice them leaving behind our backs?"

Jack's eyes went wide. "What? When was that and why didn't you say something!?"

"Though you'd noticed." Ianto said, shrugging nonchalantly. "I do believe it was sometime before they began discussing our birthdays."

"Only your birthday," Jack sighed louder and relaxed on the chair even more. "So tell me, what do the reports say?"

"Hmm…" Ianto mumbled, taking the papers back in his hands and scanning them quickly before giving his attention back at the two mugs of coffee. "Just like we predicted, major mess. They were honest in mentioning Rhys and Shaun's contribution though, we must give them that."

Jack waited for Ianto to reach him downstairs and took the mug he was offering him, leaving the other man free to keep reading the reports carefully as he sipped his own coffee.

"We should retrieve some samples from the shower if there are some left," Ianto said after some time.

"Why?" Jack asked uninterested, focussed on his coffee.

"It would make me go through the day happier if I were to know that the girls didn't get contaminated by some weird supernatural Frankenstein's monster."

"What!?" Jack yelled, jumping up from his seat and only miraculously not spilling coffee on himself. "Is that what happened tonight!? I swear I'm never leaving them unsupervised again!"

"Calm down," Ianto told him, stifling a laugh. "They were only Avanpoxiarans, but we only know this from Gwen's report. Donna was a bit more… _creative_ with definitions and descriptions."

"She always is." Jack said, frowning as he gravitated behind Ianto to read Gwen's report over his shoulder. "They had quite an apocalypse tonight, I have to admit that I'm impressed they survived without calling us."

"This seems to be thanks to the '_always careful and caring_' Shaun and our '_simple-minded and practical_' Rhys" Ianto drawled, sarcastically quoting the description for the two men from the Donna's report. "Who somehow managed to make up for their wives suicidal attempts."

"I'm putting away that damn tommy-gun," Jack argued as he finished reading Gwen's report and reached for the piece of paper under that to read properly Donna's. "Gwen has become addicted to those things, and I won't let Anwen and Heddwyn lose their mother like this."

"You can't, Jack," Ianto told him wearily, relaxing against his lover's broad chest. "You would have to put away Donna's blaster too."

"Donna won't die even if she was shot, Angie surely isn't at risk of losing hers." Jack quipped, raising an eyebrow at Donna's colourful description of the events. Were really the same events summarized by Gwen?

"She's quite hard to take down, isn't she?"

The captain left a quick kiss on Ianto's cheek and hugged him tight. "I'm glad you're hard to take down too at the moment. And you will be likely hard to take down forever."

"In more ways than one," Ianto teased, turning into his lover's arms to fully kiss him on his lips.

He left their mugs and the girls' reports on the nearest workstation and dragged Jack towards the next one, trapping him between himself and the desk as he left hungry open-mouth kisses along the whole length of his neck.

Jack whimpered, trying to focus on what his priorities were and failing at it.

"Wait… Ianto!"

The Welshman disappointedly tore himself away from him boyfriend, staring at him looking like the split definition of hot and bothered. Jack had to gulp at the display, but since he was the boss in Torchwood, he felt the need to stand his ground despite his better judgement.

"Look, I promise you we'll find some time during the morning to 'distract' ourselves from work, but right now we have our jobs to do."

Ianto simply looked at Jack flabbergasted, earning a laugh from his lover for it and a reproachful slap on his butt.

"C'mon don't look at me like that, I know you want to check what the damages are too. I gathered they had quite a row in the archives searching for weapons and information logs…"

The disappointed look on the youngest immortal's face quickly turned into one of sheer panic, as he hurriedly left his boyfriend and the main area to disappear into his domains, hoping that the actual damages didn't spread as wide as he feared considering Donna and Gwen's lack of order and discipline.

Jack stared at his lover's back quickly disappearing behind the cog door and shook his head, heading for the medical bay to retrieve tampons for any eventual sample he could find in the showers.

He had actually hoped, deep inside, that Ianto would find some witty remark to keep his teasing going… He sighed sadly at his lack of luck.

It was just going to be another long day of work.

**X**

**A/N:** While I was browsing for male names for Gwen's son I found myself looking up at the meanings of some of the names inside the actual series. After killing myself with laughter after discovering that Ianto basically means "Little John", I noticed that Gwen and Gwyneth both meant the same thing, "white, fair, blessed". So, as soon as I noticed that there was also a male name with the same meaning, I _had_ to pick that… It would be _so_ Gwen.


	3. 25th century on the rocks

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Dr Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue, bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY. For those who did not read ELL: the Future Ianto mentioned in the 21st century timeline was from the 26th century. M-preg.

**25****th**** century on the rocks**

Ianto Jones stared at the pink yellowish nebula that was slowly moving on the other side of the window pane with a deep frown on his face. He pushed some colourful buttons on the control panel in front of himself and made a couple of screens pop out before him, then he started tapping on them to select the probe camera feature and calibrate it to show the unknown gas mass from different points of view on each screen.

He barely registered the noise of the sliding doors in the control room opening behind himself and, huffing in annoyance, he called forth another couple of virtual monitors to compare the visual images he was getting with the data they had already gathered in the last two months of strict supervision.

"Rhys, could you please restart the front basic engines too? I keep feeling we're getting too close for comfort."

He heard the sound of someone actually moving behind him to lower the leverage that would make Satellite Three move backwards, followed suit by the noise of heavy steps slowly approaching in his direction. When he actually looked at the newcomer though, instead of his white haired teammate -and acquired nephew- he found himself facing his smiling son and his very pregnant partner.

"I'm sorry if I'm not Rhys, but I could let you call me that tonight if you feel adventurous." Jack teased with a wink, earning a strangled giggle from the five-years-old-looking child in his arms.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" Ianto yelled at him, hands on his hips and glare fixed on the older immortal.

"You shouldn't shout like that in front of the kid." The captain told him reproachfully, protectively tightening his grip on his, son more for the sake of drama than because the child was actually scared by Ianto's manners.

"You won't hide yourself behind Steven, Jack. Now go back to your room and stay there! You're suicidal when pregnant, so just to be sure that you will be fine this time: you stay locked up! I'll be in charge of the mission until further notice."

"Oh, but I trust you on that!" Jack hastened to appease his partner, managing to look completely sincere. "But we got bored inside that cold, double-isolated escaping-pod room you tried to lock me in –without much success I should add- so…" He looked down at his son and poked his cheek to get his attention on him unsuccessfully. "We only wanted to seed dad Ianto, isn't it Steven?"

The dark haired boy peeked behind himself, away from his little happy hideout in the front of Jack's shoulder, to give a way-too-innocent blink to his younger father, with a persuasive technique that could already match Jack's.

In front of his son's big pleading eyes, Ianto finally capitulated, and he approached his partner to take the child in his own arms, huffing in displeasure and shaking his head.

"You two are getting spoiled. Besides, we really should find a way to make Steven call us differently or I get a feeling he will end up calling you mam." The Welshman pointed out, settling his son comfortingly against his chest and dropping a small kiss on his head.

"Why should he?" Jack asked candidly, placing a hand on his bulging stomach. The only answers Ianto granted him were a risen eyebrow and a frown.

"No, really," The captain insisted. "He's seen alien races with males bearing children and, as you yourself can testify, no one ever bothered with different names for same sex parents!"

"Jack" Ianto said slowly, trying to make his lover see how he was missing the basic point of what he was saying. "I wasn't making it a general issue on same sex-parenting, I meant that Steven _specifically_ will do that. I _know_ my own child."

Jack simply groaned and dismissed Ianto's worries with a flick of his hand.

"Back to this mess," Jack changed quickly the subject, approaching the holographic monitors Ianto had set around the glass panel. "What do you have that can put an end to my endless boredom?"

Ianto sighed and slowly advanced towards the console to stand next to Jack.

"On Earth the alarms are still the same as always and they keep pointing here, but… I simply can't understand _why_ this should be dangerous or _how_ this is connected to the rift back in Cardiff."

"What about the other Torchwood satellites?"

"Satellite Two isn't even here yet, because they were on that Scottish colony when the rift spiked last time, and Satellite Four… Well, we lost them. Again."

"Should I ask the crown to gather enough forces for a Satellite One? It would be nice a steady back-up service straight from the mainland."

"Don't bother, I don't think that would be of any help at the moment. We're the only Torchwood needed here. The rift is _our_ responsibility after all, even if the flares are keeping us away from home for more than we signed for."

Ianto's blue eyes stared vaguely at the nebula, but, considering the sad look in his eyes, Jack knew that it was not the pink mass of gasses he was seeing, but their own blue planet, almost half a galaxy away.

"We'll go back to Earth, Ianto." Jack told him warmly, encircling his shoulders with his arm and making him lean towards his chest. "I'm sorry I got you trapped here in outer space."

"Don't be, Jack. It's not your fault and I already know the drill. One day Earth itself will end up completely deserted and destroyed… I just wonder if I'll last long enough to be there with you to see its last minutes."

"I don't know if I would like that, Ian. Of course I would love to still have you with me at the time, whatever form we will take but… Earth is your home. Yours way more than mine."

"It's our graveyard, you weren't wrong when you said that to Gwen." Ianto corrected him, moving a little more to the side to rest his head sadly against his partner's shoulder. Seeing his lover like that hurt Jack deeply, and he automatically tightened his grip on his shoulder as he rested his chin on Ianto's head, hoping to offer some kind of comfort.

One of the computer programs, still running in the background, chose that exact moment to finish its elaboration and its alarm began beeping for attention, startling Steven who threw instinctively his arms around his father's neck. Ianto tightened his grip on his son and ran expectantly to the intermittently lighting up panel half across the room, hoping that finally the systems had detected something useful.

"There's a crack inside," Ianto told Jack, his voice wavering uncertain. "…And something else."

"Do we have readings or images of what we're talking about?" Jack asked, walking as quickly as he could towards his partner.

Ianto used his free hand to press a couple of buttons and then waited for the results, as he absentmindedly brushed his cheek against Steven's and whispered soothing words in Welsh to reassure the still unsettled child.

"Nothing yet." He said eventually, as soon as the results appeared. "The probes are still too far to get any specific detail on the internal composition."

"Still you're too worried not to have any idea of what this could be about, don't you?" Jack considered as he took in his partner's concerned features.

"Some of the readings we're getting are off topic," Ianto explained, at least a little more focused now that Steven seemed to have quietened a little, but still looking extremely worried. "It's like inside there's also something that's not there."

"Ianto, that might simply mean that _nothing_ is there except the in-space crack and the alien monster or whatever it is the thing we already identified with the heat scans." Jack tried to reassure him.

"What if it's not, Jack?" Ianto argued, seeming slightly in panic. "Last time I saw those kinds of readings… I was still working at Torchwood One."

Jack stared at his partner, trying to make sense of his words, until eventually it clicked.

"The Daleks via the void you mean. You think there might be another void ship inside?"

"I have no idea. And I don't even think I would be able to do something if that's really the case." Ianto explained, shrugging. "I didn't work on that project, you're just lucky that I was just curious enough that I liked to spy on the other teams. Still, you know… I've just been wondering… if there could be things like… cracks to the void? That would explain most of the readings, because the rift in Cardiff would be acting more as an alarm resonating than as a GPS like we thought until now."

Jack had to think about that possibility a lot, but he himself wasn't sure if such a thing could actually exist or not. He personally had never seen one, but the only person he knew he could hold such knowledge was far away, lost in space, and he couldn't rely on him. His first lessons on the workings of the universe though had more or less told him that everything was possible unless you could see survival faults on the logic and mechanisms concerning the worlds and their relations to one another inside the same system (1)… It was 51st century school knowledge, but as far as he knew, it had solid scientific basis.

"It might… I hope is not though." Jack had to say eventually. "That's the reign of the dead, who knows what could come through this time. Back with One the fabrics of reality were collapsing-"

Ianto's eyes widened as he turned to stare properly at his partner. "I need to get you two out of here. It's not safe!"

"Calm down and don't panic." Jack told him putting both his hands on his lover's shoulders to stop him before he rushed away to set off the alarms and give the order to restrain him in his room. "We sent the probes, and until they can actually send us useful information or images there's nothing we can do. Do you agree with me?"

Ianto nodded, unsure if he could trust his partner to keep a neutral view on the situation despite their obviously different ideas on what to do to ensure Jack's safety. He gulped, trying not to think about the worst case scenario that might be happening: this was his first real official high-level danger emergency situation he was facing as the actual Torchwood 3 boss, and he couldn't be really one step away from meeting again with the Daleks. It wasn't possible! What would happen on his second official mission? Cybermen!?

Seeing his lover's panic increase through his teary eyes, Jack tried to smile at him in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

"I suggest we just keep retreating as you've already ordered. We'll see this from afar, ready to confront everything that's going to come onto us and, just in case something that requires immediate intervention happens, we set the high speed drones ready to take off, ok? This way we can get involved with no risk for any of us or the people living and working for us in this outpost."

The Welshman took a moment to look outside again and reassure himself that the situation actually appeared as steady as Jack was describing it, and then he went to the nearest wall to click the big red button that activated the intercom. "Officer Williams, control room. Report."

Not too long afterwards, the sliding doors opened and a tall man in his mid-thirties entered the room. His long white hair swung behind him, tightened in a short pigtail as his green eyes took in his surroundings, seeming disconcerted.

"Uncle Jack?" He noticed surprised. "I thought uncle Ianto had put you on bed rest once and for all. Do I need to call Ann?"

"I'm pregnant, Rhys, I don't need constant medical surveillance!" Jack snapped annoyed at the Welshman.

"My wife used to say the same thing, you know? She was Scottish though, so in the end when she actually _had_ complications while delivering my son, she ended up blaming my work and me for not being there. Wouldn't want that to happen to you too, you know?"

Jack grinned at him. "My partner is Welsh though, as you both love to remind me. Although I highly doubt that the problem with your wife was the fact that she was Scottish."

"Yeah, I agree. Nationality would have been an important issue there only if she had been English." Ianto pointed out, earning a sincere nod from Rhys too.

"Oi, you two!" Jack argued exasperated. "It's the year 2495, you can't really still blind yourself in this Wales and Scotland against the world!"

"It's not against the world, it's just against England." Rhys clarified, and it was Ianto's turn to nod his approval.

Jack scoffed and stared down at his son, who was curiously staring alternatively at his fathers and Rhys, trying to figure out what they were arguing about. He poked his little nose and challenged him with determinate eyes. "You will grow up like a good half Welsh-boy without prejudices, not like your dad Ianto and uncle Rhys, won't you?"

Steven blinked a couple of times, wondering at the meaning behind his father's words, then he simply nodded to make him happy, blushing and hiding his face again behind Ianto's shoulder.

"You should talk sometimes, _cariad_." Ianto reprimanded his son lightly. "We all know you can, you don't have to be shy."

"I bet you simply had him confused between English and Welsh." Jack quipped at his partner, who glared back at him.

"He merely took after me," Ianto protested, frowning as he held his son even tighter. "Not everyone is as chatty as you are. Making him learn Welsh as well as English has nothing to do with this. Wales has always been bilingual since the annexation to the British Empire and no one ever got _confused_!"

Rhys laughed at Jack's despondent pout, but then decided that he had better make everyone focus back on the actual reason he had been summoned to the control room.

"Sorry to intrude in your little educative disquisition, but I guess you needed me here for something?"

"Yeah" Ianto said quickly, back to professional mode in record time. "I need you to prepare the drones for immediate departure. We're retreating, so we'll need them ready to go in case something happens."

"Ook" Rhys answered taking out his controller and scribbling on it with a small stick. "I'll turn them on right now, so they will be ready for manual charging by the time I get there."

"Thank you, Rhys," Ianto told him and then turned at the screens, regarding again the data with a loud sigh. "Still nothing there..."

"Other things you want me to-" Rhys had to hold himself to the nearest surface as the whole satellite shook vigorously, preventing him from finishing his enquiry. "Woah!"

Ianto was quick to take Jack with his free arm to stabilize him before he fell, and then held him tight against himself as another sudden movement made him slam backwards against the console.

"Jack!? Are you all right?" Ianto yelled despite the pain in his lower back where he had hit the hard metal, caressing his lover's hair and scanning his face with worried eyes in search of any sign of distress.

"I'm fine." Jack answered, grasping Ianto's shirt and waist for dear life. "Steven?"

The child simply whimpered in fear, hardly daring to peek from the safety wall of his father's shoulder. Ianto gave him a quick check anyway, but to his relief he really seemed just scared.

"He's fine, but you two should really get out of here, so I can focus on this mess."

"You need my experience, you know that."

"Well make sense of this then!" Ianto yelled, pointing to the screens around them full of confused weaving colourful shapes.

"An electromagnetic distortion?" The captain asked to no one in particular.

"Looks like it." Ianto confirmed, a little more calmly this time. "But there was nothing inside that mass of gasses that could have caused it."

"Rhys!" Jack called behind them. "Everything worked fine downstairs before we called you here?"

"Yeah" The Welshman answered, as he tried to set in order his own clothing. "Nothing seemed weird or unusual and the radars didn't signal interferences of any sort."

Ianto mulled that over and then gave his attention back at the keyboard to activate one of the emergency protocols. He entered a couple of codes and soon, much to his personal satisfaction, all the screens began showing again images and data.

"We're lucky we've got screens for basics interferences, but this still doesn't solve the problem." He commented. As he read through the new batches of data though, his jaw dropped in disbelief. "I can't believe it! Still nothing! And why are we not accelerating backwards, I gave the order hours ago!"

Ianto's glare stopped on Rhys, who simply stared back at him with his mouth opened.

"I set the engines to go full force. Look here, they're still active and still going as you ordered!" He argued, showing Ianto a 3D hologram of the engine room with his controller.

"Still we're not moving right now." Jack muttered, as he redirected one of the near satellites CCTV to have a close up on their own.

Ianto paled seeing the images on the screen and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to sort out his priorities.

"We need to evacuate Satellite Three, I won't have other deaths to my name." His eyes opened up again as he stared determined into Jack's ones. "Especially not the death of someone I love, I don't care if you will come back."

"You don't have the authority to order me to retreat, but you're free to organize evacuation for the rest of the crew." Jack stated in a tone that didn't leave much room for discussion. "You're right, we shouldn't take chances."

"We might not have much choice on that." Rhys cut in as he pushed the button to open the sliding door without results. "We're trapped."

"What!?" The two immortals asked at the same time.

Ianto tried to make their comms and experimental earpods work, tried the communications through the console and everything else he could think of, but everything seemed dead.

"Ann?" Jack called through his wrist-strap after also the intercom failed to assist them. "Ann, can you hear me?"

"_Hardly, but I can make sense of what you are saying at least._" The voice answering through the VM was weirdly distorted, so much that it would have been hard to even identify the voice as human, much less as a woman's.

"Can you open any of the doors?"

"_Negative, uncle Jack._"

Jack swore under his breath, but tried to not sound too concerned to not worry the young nurse too much. "Keep your eyes open, but try to not fret too much, because we're working to solve things up here. See around if someone needs you, I'll call you back in a short while."

"_All right. Later then._"

Once he closed the communications, Jack slapped his wrist-strap in anger. "This is not supposed to break, damn it!"

"Since we're still down, there _must_ be something else interfering other than the electromagnetic field." Rhys reasoned.

Jack's eyes went from Rhys to Ianto, who simply held tight to his son as he tried to comfort himself more than the child, guilt written all over his face.

"Ianto, if the end of the world happens during your shift you didn't make it happen." Jack reprimanded his partner. "Now, I need you to tell me how much you actually peeked inside that Torchwood One project that was not yours."

"Enough to understand we should have stopped playing with it?" Ianto offered even more guiltily.

"If we were talking about, I don't know…" Jack gestured vaguely at his partner. "Void interferences. Could you find a way to avert them?"

Ianto stared at him with his mouth slightly open as he processed correctly what Jack had just asked him to do. "Stop a flux that doesn't have shape, consistency, smell… That simply doesn't exist!?"

"Was that a no?" Jack questioned unsurely, never being one to doubt Ianto.

"Jack, I might be something near to a genius in tinkering with things once I work out the basics of something, but I'm only _human_." The Welshman clarified, still earning only a doubtful risen eyebrow from his partner.

"I could still try to use the odds to our advantage and at least avert the consequences of its presence around us." He admitted eventually.

Jack smirked satisfied at him. "I knew you could find a way out of this mess. I couldn't have chosen a better husband."

Ianto snorted and sat down in front of the main monitor, balancing safely Steven on his tight so that he could work faster with both hands. The little boy settled on his lap comfortably as he looked his father's hands moving fast on the keyboards, holding tight on the hem of his jacket for good measure.

"Still not your husband." Ianto took his chance to snap at Jack while smiling indulgently at his amazed son. "As you kindly put it once, it will never happen."

"Does this mean I have to cancel everything I set up for the next month?" Jack asked uncertain with a sheepish smile on his face that went completely unnoticed by his partner.

"You can hardly cancel delivering our kid only because I stated the obvious." Ianto answered evenly as he quickly kept entering new lines of code inside the already existing ones of the core defence programs. "Besides, if Ann's right you won't last until the end of _this_ month with a belly that big, let alone try to postpone it after the next one."

"You really know how to make a man feel loved." Jack quipped with a frown as he crossed his arms over his chest the best he could, eliciting a small chuckle from his partner.

"I learned from the best then."

"Still I wasn't talking about the little girl delivery."

"Then what was that about?" Ianto asked, without paying much attention to him as he wetted his lips while double checking the new changes and opening the files with the readings to make the link between them and the program.

"Well" Jack said vaguely, blushing a little embarrassed. "I thought that by the next month we'll be with two kids already…"

Ianto raised a doubtful eyebrow at what Jack was trying to say, but kept staring at the screen, wondering if he had accurately changed every single line of code that needed rewriting. "Jack, we already have Steven, one more won't be such a big change after the first months of mad hysterics."

"Yeah, well…" Jack tried to continue. "But we'll be _finished_ with having children. For now. If you remember it well, as much we were both enthusiastic about Steven when I told you, it's not like we _consciously_ decided to have him. This time you have to admit that it _is_ a little different."

"So, what's your point?" Ianto asked, frowning deeply as he sincerely couldn't get a hold of what his partner was babbling about. "I hope you're not thinking about making preferences between the kids only because we chose to have one, but not the other."

"I would never Ianto!" Jack bit back, deeply offended. "I was only pointing out that even thought I didn't _want_ to have children, now we actually _chose_ to have one."

"So? Do you want to celebrate you breaking your self-imposed taboo?" Ianto teased, smirking as the program correctly reactivated and began slowly but automatically setting all the new changes through the whole defence system. 2% done, 98% still to go.

Jack sighed, physically exhausted by the argument.

"Let's say that I thought it would be a good idea if I broke _both_ my self-imposed taboos since I had already dishonoured _one_." He snapped angrily.

"Wait" Ianto said plainly, finally getting through Jack's convoluted speech now that he could give his partner his whole attention. "You can't be saying what I'm thinking you're saying." The more he spoke, the more dangerous his tone became, much to his partner's worry.

"And… What are you thinking?" Jack asked so innocently that basically answered Ianto's unspoken question with only that single sentence.

"There's no way this is happening!" Ianto yelled at him, taking care to cover his son's ears as he took Steven again in his arms and stood up. "Not like this! Is this your idea of a proposal!?"

"I didn't think I needed to actually _ask_ my partner of almost five centuries to marry me! I wanted for you to be a nice surprise, like taking you out on a date when you didn't expect it!"

"You _asked_ for our first date, if you remember correctly! What's the point of a _proposal_ if not asking! You're meant to ask and wait properly for a yes or no!"

"Oh, was I going to get a yes or a no answer _this_ time? You never gave me any, what's the point of asking!?"

"Well this was your last chance, and you blew it!"

Rhys, who had been the unwilling spectators of his bosses' row, bit hardly his lower lip to prevent himself from laughing at them or asking the couple the obvious, until in the end he simply sighed and gave up to the one question that wouldn't get him fired.

"Sorry to interrupt," He tried, gaining two furious pair of blue eyes staring at him. "But are you going to get married then?"

The two angry stares melted in a pool of embarrassment. They both blushed and lowered their eyes, and then Jack pretended to check the outcome of Ianto's updates, whilst Ianto tormented his lips searching a nice way to put it.

"Well… You know…" The Welshman blabbed uncertainly. In the end he simply looked up at his team-mate with big hopeful eyes and a happy shy smile on his lips, nodding shyly.

"Then, congratulations!" Rhys told them happily, hugging Ianto since he was incidentally the nearest one. "If we're still all alive and well, I hope you'll invite all of us too."

"Speaking of which," Jack said, watching closely as the progress bar on the screen finally hit the 100% and a blip echoed inside the control room.

Rhys rushed by the door and tried again the opening button: the familiar sound of the two metal panels sliding away welcomed them. "Uncle Ianto, you did it!"

"Then let's head out! I'm going to activate the alarms for evacuation." Ianto said approaching again the console. "Jack, please take Steven with you and go. I'll be fine here alone."

Jack turned to stare seriously at his fiancé and at their little son, who was back again gripping tightly Ianto's shirt. He couldn't help finding the picture in front of himself endearing.

"No. _You_ go, Ianto. Leave Rhys to command the drones and check the perimeter of the nebula. You take care of the evacuation."

"Jack, there's no way I'm leaving you behind in a normal situation, much less eight months and a half pregnant!"

"I won't be staying behind either" Jack said, offering him a small smile. "I'll just use the emergency program to call the Doctor and then I'll follow you out. If the Daleks happen, there's nothing we can do by ourselves."

"You're better be serious about this." Ianto warned, staring at his lover with extremely worried eyes as he put his free hand on Jack's stomach. "I trust you to remember you're not your own person right now."

"Of course. That's why it's hard for me to do this." He told his fiancé, leaning towards him enough to leave a small kiss on both Steven's and Ianto's head. "Now go, the sooner everyone is out of here the better. We'll both be fine and out of here soon."

Ianto nodded and exited the control room along with Rhys. When Jack was sure that his family was far away enough, he approached resolutely the control panel and pushed the isolation button.

No matter how fast Ianto tried to run back before being trapped outside, his cries for Jack were closed off behind two heavy layers of Martian steel.

**T.B.C.**

(1) What Jack is actually referring to is Einstein's theory of _Restrict Relativism_ that basically states that the only limit to 'everything is possible' is the coherency among the different laws and means you're using to get the data you're using to develop your speculation. Such a theory was afterwards extended to include the practical laws of the universe becoming the theory of _General Relativism_. I guessed that by the 51st century they could have expanded it even more to actually include the very existence of different laws and systems throughout the universe. However, considering the messes made by Jack pre-Doctor, I took the liberty to speculate that he didn't pay too much attention to how things worked even at school. Let's say that his ignorance of the basics security systems with the Chula ship and his lack of interest for the technology behind nanogenes and chameleon circuits helped validate my theory. Sorry Jack.


End file.
